Are you feeling better?

The day after the Eid, Daniel told me, "I feel ten times better than I did yesterday, but I still feel absolutely awful."

When his symptoms continued through the weekend, he decided to visit a doctor. He was given five separate medications, and they sent a snot sample of his off to Rabat. When he returned home he laid out all five of the medications and sat down to take them. It must have taken him nearly 20 minutes to get through the entire batch, a process that repeated itself a few times a day thereafter. It seemed to have worked, though. After a few days of the ritual, he started to feel a little better.

But then on Thursday, his results came in: Daniel was positive for H1N1. The Delegation of Health called on Thursday night and asked him to report the next day. On Friday morning before Daniel made his official appearance, I left the house to go to my Darija lesson at work. About 20 minutes in, my lesson was abruptly interrupted by the secretary. She pulled me out of the class into the hallway.

"You know that Daniel has H1N1?"
"Yes. He told me."
"You need to go to the doctor right now."
"But I feel fine."
"You need to go to the doctor right now. Daniel isn't to come to work for one week. You won't be working either."
"But I feel fine..."

One of the other administrators walked me over to the doctor's office. After watching me sign in, he left me to wait along with the dozen or so coughing, wheezing patients, bundled up in coats, hats, and scarves (The building, like almost all Moroccan buildings, had no heat.) There were some ancient Moroccan travel magazines on the coffee table in the middle, so I took a look at them. After thirty minutes I had flipped through all of the German, French, and Arabic versions. I then proceeded to play Snake on my phone for another half hour.

After an hour and forty minutes, I was finally ushered in to see the doctor. He took my weight, listened to my breathing, and took a snot test. He then concluded, "I don't see why you can't work." In any case, he wrote me a prescription for a couple of medications and sent me away.

I returned to work and reported what the doctor had told me. However, they said they would prefer to wait until the test returned.

Frustrated, I returned home to find Daniel a bit befuddled. After reporting to the Delegation of Health, he had been given a certificate that forbid him from working for a week. This, despite the fact that it had been almost a week since his fever broke and it had been over four days since he started taking medication.

On forced medical leave and yet not sick, the two of us decided to do some shopping. We checked out some furniture we've been meaning to buy. We had lunch at a nice pizza place. We walked around town. The sun was shining. Birds were tweeting. It was a great weekend.

On Monday my results came in: negative. At last, I was allowed to return to work.

This entire week I have been running into co-workers in the hallway. They all say, "You look great. Are you feeling better?"